AKA-Look We Have Hard Wood Floors Under This Carpet….Now What We bought our house about a year ago. It was built in the 50’s. There was carpet in ALL the rooms, hall, and everything. it was cheap carpet. When we were doing the home inspection, I noticed that the carpet in one of the rooms was different than the hall. So I pulled it up a tiny bit at the seam and found hard wood floors. During this last year, we have not had a chance to pull the carpet up, I had a baby and bla bla bla. Then my cat started peeing in the hall…. (as much as I love him he is now an outdoor cat.) So we decided to take out the carpet this morning. We found that is has been covered with carpet likely since the 70’s (as was evidenced by the UGLY avocado green shag that was still stuck in the corners) We also found that there was definite damage from said cat, and probably others. Lastly, this beautiful oak flooring has not been cared for in 40 years.
So the questions are as follows. I started cleaning the floors earlier with 1 gallon hot water and 1/2 gallon white vinegar and 1 small scoop of oxy clean. it seems to have worked some. Is this a good method? do I need something different? What do I use to get the smell and the stain out, so my cat doesn’t pee there anymore? How do I treat the floors? I plan to murphy’s oil soap it tomorrow. do I need to varnish it? Seal it? what’s the difference? Some time they painted the trim and didn’t bother to protect the floors. How do I get dried paint off the floors? little puddles of white paint at the bottom of all the doorways. Can I sand the major gouges (from the idiot carpet layers cutting through the carpet) and what do I do about the nail holes and staple holes from the tack strips and stuff?
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You will find that in the repair process there is a noticeable dissimilarity in colors, which is why sanding and refinishing is the common “opt for” choice.This can be a DIY project with readily available rental equipment and a short learning curve.Sanding will remove most of the inherent staining from nails and staples.To repair the damage from holes and gouges, I’ve used some of the sanding dust mixed into a paste with lacquer thinner, applied, allowed to dry and sanded.
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We’ve had this done by professionals, so I don’t know more than a few answers. To get rid of the paint puddles you will have to sand. I think you can rent sanders but I haven’t a clue how to use them! When we had our floors done there were a lot of stains so we ended up staining them a very dark color and that hid most of the stains. This was something I never would have thought of but it worked great. Good luck with your DIY project and I hope they turn out well!
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Thanks for the info. I did a vinegar wash. I am doing a bleach wash tomorrow and then I am going to do the Murphy’s oil soap, to make the floors look pretty until we get the carpet pulled up in the other rooms. We are going to pull all the carpet up, then rent the MEGA sander and borrow the circular sander and do all the rooms and the hall in a weekend…..(our hope) Well we will do the sanding in one weekend. then we plan to clear coat it. I will post pictures when we get finished.
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Pet stains have to replace wood; call a pro refinisher; if you want/ need to delay, there is a new Minwax DIY refinish product I want try; Ads in various wood/ DIY magazines; Using the Minwax product should cause no problems if you later use pro finisher There are also various pet stain odor removers, but READ the labels, re: wood There are various tinted wood fillers, including wax types that will fill/ hide small holes
if you find one close enough color match (not too hard) Paint puddles can be scraped off with a strong bladed knife, slow, hard work, but effective; There is also a tinted floor/ furniture wax, (Brewax, I think) Gouges I would try the Brewax or filler wax sticks (Minwax makes them also), (instead of sanding) Leave the sanding to the pros